A bystander may have used a car accident as an opportunity to shoot a Davis police officer and take aim at others.

The suspected killer — later identified as 48-year-old Kevin Douglas Limbaugh — opened fire on officer Natalie Corona when she questioned drivers involved in a three-car crash Thursday night. He reportedly approached the scene on a bicycle and used a semiautomatic handgun to shoot Corona multiple times, which resulted in her death.

These were some of the details released during a press conference Friday night led by Davis police Chief Darren Pytel.

The 22-year-old officer was shot about 7 p.m. Thursday while investigating a three-car crash near the intersection of Fifth and D streets, just north of downtown Davis, authorities said.

“Based on how dark it was, we’re speculating that she never even saw him,” Pytel said. “This clearly does look like an ambush.”

Witnesses statements seem to support this theory.

Christian Pascual, a 25-year-old graduate student who was one of the drivers involved in the crash, told The Sacramento Bee that Davis police Officer Natalie Corona had been talking with the drivers when Pascual heard gunfire coming from behind him. Pascual said he believed the man was a bystander who had not been involved in the crash.

“I gave her my license and she was just about to give it to me,” Pascual told the Bee. “That’s when I heard the shots.”

Corona fell to the ground, Pytel said, and the gunman walked up and shot her several more times. He reloaded and started firing in a different direction, striking a fire truck, a bus and a house. One round hit a backpack a student was wearing and lodged in a textbook.

Pytel said the shooter reloaded again and zeroed in on a nearby fire rescue squad. A round hit the boot of a fleeing firefighter, but no one was injured.

The gunman walked around the block and went to a home on the 500 block of E Street, where he talked to a roommate but gave no indication he had just been involved in a shooting, Pytel said.

Corona was taken to the UC Davis Medical Center, where she died. Pytel said she was hit at least once in the neck.

A witness pointed out a backpack the shooter left behind and information inside it led officers to the E Street home, Pytel said. They surrounded the home and ordered him to come outside. He left the home wearing a bulletproof vest, shouted some things and went back inside. He then returned, this time holding a gun, but went back inside.

A shot rang out a short time later. Pytel said officers used a robot to search the house and discovered the gunman had shot himself.

Although she was in her first year as an officer, Corona had worked for Davis police since 2016, mostly as a community service officer. Pytel said she was the first to participate in a new program that converts part-time employees into full-fledged officers.

Corona lived in Arbuckle. Her father, Merced, spent 26 years as a Colusa County sheriff’s deputy before his retirement, and was elected to the county’s board of supervisors last year. When Natalie Corona was sworn in as a Davis police officer in early August, the Williams Pioneer Review reported, it was her father who pinned on her badge.

“This has just been absolutely devastating to the Davis Police Department,” Pytel said Friday night. “Truly, I don’t think I’ve ever worked with anybody quite like her that has just been able to make so many friends and leave so many impressions with so many people.”

Nico Savidge and Jason Green from Bay Area News Group contributed to this report.

Sarah Dowling is the associate editor of The Daily Democrat and has been with the newspaper since 2013. She graduated from Sonoma State University that same year, with a bachelor’s degree in communication studies. She enjoys theater, film, comic books and spending time with her miniature schnauzer named Mikey.